IAF Aircraft Inventory:
North American P-51D Mustang

It was Reichmarschall Hermann
Goering, head of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe, who said "When
I saw those Mustangs over Berlin, I knew that the war was
lost." The best fighter of the Second World War was
designed as a private venture and developed for a foreign
customer which doubted the company could even build a good
fighter. Contacted by Britain to produce the second-rate
Curtiss P-40 for the RAF, North American Aviation (NAA) proposed
to build a new fighter for the British. Only in May 1940,
8 monthes after the contacts between the two sides begun
did Britian sign a contract for the new fighter, and even
then under strict limitations. The prototype was completed
within 102 days and its performance was better than that
of any European counterpart of the time, flying faster and
carrying more fuel. The initial RAF order of 320 aircraft
was soon followed by a further order for another 300, and
the type was to become the first RAF fighter to overfly Nazi
Germany during the war. The Mustang was soon ordered for
the U.S. Army and dominated the sky over Europe, not only
in Western Europe but also over the Eastern and Italian fronts
as well as in the Pacific theatre. The most numerous variant
was the D model, incorporating a bubble canopy and even more
fuel than its predecessors. Mustangs continued to serve with
U.S. well into Korean war and served in over 50 air forces
around the world.

Israeli acquisition agents, sent abroad
to search for aircraft for the fledgling IAF,
managed to acquire four Mustangs in the U.S. during the summer
of 1948. These four were shipped to Israel in crates, marked
as agricultural equipment in order to bypass the American
embargo on weapon sales to the Middle East. The first two
(No 190,191) arrived in Israel in September 1948 and were
quickly assembled and put into service with Israel's first
fighter squadron, first at Herzelia and later at Castina
(Hazor). The second pair arrived in Israel in October and
were not assembled in time to see service during the War
of Independence due to a lack of spare parts.

The two assembled Mustangs participated
in the last five monthes of the War
of Independence. These were the most advanced fighters
in service with the IAF during the war, with better performance
than any aircraft available to the Arab side. With their
long range, spanning the entire Middle East, they were used
for reconnaissance besides their main role of strike fighter/interceptors.
The first victory by an Israeli Mustang was not an Arab aircraft,
but an RAF Mosquito which beforehand had flown uninterrupted
over Israel, gathering intelligence beyond the ceiling of
earlier IAF fighters. On November 20th, 1948, After an earlier
failed attempt, one Mustang was scrambled from Castina to
intercept the intruder and shot it down. The first encounter
with enemy aircraft came only on January 5th 1949, against
Egyptian MC205s, with no casualties on either side. Two days
later however, on the last day of the fighting, the two P-51Ds
were escorting T-6 Harvads on a ground attack mission when
they encountered six Egyptian MC205s and shot three of them
down.

Although the War of Independence ended in early 1949, the
Mustangs continued to fly reconnaissance missions over neighbouring
Arab states for a number of years. Beyond the four original
Mustangs, the latter pair assembled by now, more examples
were acquired for the IAF. 36 more aircraft were purchased
in the U.S. in the early fifties, and in 1952 Israel bought
25 examples from the Swedish Air Force (example 19 below
was one of them), among which were four tactical reconnaissance
Mustangs. In 1955 30 more aircraft were purchased in Italy,
but only some of them were assembled and flown. With the
arrival of the new aircraft, the Mustang became the backbone
of Israel's fighter force, performing such tasks as bomber
escort, ground attack and maritime patrol.

The Mustangs went into action again on
April 5th, 1951, when 4 P-51s and 4 Spitfires attacked the Syrian police
station and army camp at El-Hama after Syrian forces ambushed
and killed 7 Israeli soldiers. When an Israel
Navy ship ran aground near Saudi
Arabia in April 1954, Mustangs were sent at first to
protect the rescue operations and later to bomb the ship
and destroy it before it fell into enemy hands. In October
1956, shortly before the outbreak of the Suez crisis, 4 Mustangs bombed the Jordanian police station at
Kalkillia.

In the early 1950s the IAF began arming itself with jet
fighters such as the Meteor,
Ouragan, and Mystere, and the Mustang lost its frontline
role, a large number sent into storage in 1956. Only one
squadron remained operational, No 116, and its primary role
was to instruct new pilots. The international circumstances,
however, soon dictated the return of the Mustang to action
when in late October 1956 the Suez Crisis broke out. Taken
out of storage, a second squadron was formed and a total
of 48 Mustangs were in operation. Given their long operational
range, the Mustangs were tasked with destruction of Egyptian
fighters and bombers at distant airfields, some even beyond
the Suez Canal in mainland Africa.

On the day hostilites broke out, October
29th, two pairs of P-51Ds were assigned a special mission
- to disrupt Egyptian communication by cutting the phone
lines that connected the various Egyptian army camps with
their HQ. A special device was designed specifically for
this mission, consisting of a weight connected by a cable
to the aircraft's tail. The Mustangs took to the air at noon,
but by the time they had arrived at their targets, some had
lost the cable. Instead of aborting their mission, these
Mustangs cut down the phone lines using their wings and propellers,
with considerable risk to themselves.

For the Mustangs, the war begun differently
than planned. In the first two days, IAF command refused
to allow piston engined aircraft to enter the fighting zone
before the establishment of air superiority. Only on October
31st did the Mustangs join in the fighting and until the
end of the war were used to attack enemy forces, outposts,
fortifications, routes, shipping and other such targets.
All in all, the Mustangs carried out 184 sorties, during
which 7 aircraft were lost, including No. 19 lost near Sharm-A-Sheik
in the southern Sinai Peninsula.

With the prolifiration of jet aircraft both in the IAF and
Arab air forces, and the advances made in anti aircraft weaponry,
the P-51D Mustang became obsolete and the type was finally
retired from service on January 15th, 1961. The IAF's last
frontline piston engined fighter, a total of 79 Mustangs
served with the Israeli Air Force. The Mustang, along with
the Mosquito, is also of great historical importance - in
operating these aircraft , the IAF developed the concept
of using multi-role fighters in both interception and ground
attack roles in order to maximise the capabilities of a limited
fighter arm (a concept relevant even today with aircraft
such as the F-4 and F-16). Four examples still survive in
Israel today, all of them at the IAF Museum at Hatzerim which
still maintains one in flying condition.